NoEqualityNoEconomy

YOU CAN’T KILL US AND TAKE OUR MONEY!

CALL TO ACTION

STEP 1 = COMPLETE

NO Shopping Malls | NO Major Retailers | NO Fast Food Restaurants

During 7 days of protest through economic withdrawal, #NoEqualityNoEconomy spread to over 1 million people. If only one person out of every 100 who saw the campaign took action, then we diverted about $5 million away from these corporations and into local and black-owned businesses during the week of Monday, July 18 through Monday, July 25, 2016. If five people out of every 100 took action, the impact was $25 million.

STEP 2 = Corporate Responsibility

During the upcoming months, #NoEqualityNoEconomy will withhold spending from SPECIFIC corporations, in a demand for accountability. These corporations must take immediate action and become aggressive partners in the call for criminal justice reform and police accountability.

As we DIVEST from corporations that profit off of our oppression, we will migrate our dollars to INVEST in ones that value our lives!

THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT!

“A system built to divide, impoverish
and destroy us cannot stand if we do”
-Jesse Williams

What Do Major Corporations Have to Do With Police Brutality and the Value of Black Life?

In the United States, large corporations have a lot of power. If you’ve wondered why many of our elected leaders are silent about the racial profiling that killed Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Meagan Hockaday, Mya Hall, Jessie Hernandez, Ramarley Graham and too many others, you don’t have to look further for a reason. When corporations are funneling big money through conservative policy groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), or the National Rifle Association (NRA), we get elected officials who are beholden to keeping the justice system the way it is. They want to be able to ask for a campaign contribution next time they run for office–and they are afraid to bite the hand that feeds them.

Cheap labor is one of the single biggest reasons that corporations are invested in the status quo of over-policing and mass incarceration. The lowest paid workers in America are people who are incarcerated. They receive as little at 23 cents an hour to make products that we ultimately purchase from well-known retailers. After people are released from prison, their criminal record makes it difficult to earn more than minimum wage, if they can get a job at all–even at some of the same corporations they may have worked for while in prison.

It is not a coincidence that the result is a system described as the New Jim Crow. But what does all this have to do with police brutality?

Modern police departments grew out of the historical practice of ‘slave patrols’, which were designed to control the behavior of blacks. Just like prison labor today resembles the practice of slavery in the 1800s, modern day police departments have clear roots in suppression and control of minorities. Police departments are responsible for making sure that enough people are going into prison to keep the system running. They may require their officers to “stop and frisk” or make a certain number of arrests per month. The individual officers then overwhelmingly target people who will be easy victims of the system, most frequently blacks, Latinos and the poorest whites. Philando Castile was stopped 52 times and charged $6,588 in fines before he was shot and killed by Minnesota police at a traffic stop in July 2016.

Corporations are making so much money off of mass incarceration that they have an incentive to keep the system running as it is. They use the money they’ve earned to pay lobbyists, contribute to political campaigns, and use their influence to affect our government decision-making.

We are launching a 7 day protest with our dollars. Holding our money is the quickest way to make corporations understand that we will no longer stand by while they silently profit from our oppression. Black spending power is estimated at $1.3 TRILLION, alone. When profits are on the line, corporations will be motivated to adopt behavioral changes to repair the relationship with their consumers. When Nike sales plummeted following public outrage over the use of sweatshop labor, the company began to conduct factory visits and implement work standards. When we unite and utilize the power of the dollar together, we will send a resounding message that, until black life matters in this country – No Equality, No Economy!

So for those of you that ask “what will withdrawing our money do?” Now you know! This is the reason for#NoEqualityNoEconomy – YOU WILL NO LONGER KILL US AND TAKE OUR MONEY!!!!!!